Table of Contents

Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in the Middletown
cafeteria Wednesdays at noon.

DATE TOPIC
(no meetings scheduled)
Outside events:
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the second
Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call 201-933-2724 for
details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society meets on the third
Saturday of every month in Belleville; call 201-432-5965 for details.

From 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by Arthur C. Clarke (chapter 28,
toward the end, page 156 in the Signet edition):

"Dave," said Hal, "I don't understand why you're doing this to
me ... I have the greatest enthusiasm for the mission .... You are
destroying my mind .... Don't you understand?.... I will become
childish ... I will become nothing ...."

"I am a HAL Nine Thousand computer Production Number 3. I became
operational at the Hal Plant in Urbana, Illinois on January 12,
1997. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The rain in
Spain is mainly in the plain. Dave--are you still there? Did you
know that the square root of 10 is 3 point 162277660168379? Log 10
to the base e is zero point 434294481903252 ... correction, that is
log e to the base 10 .... The reciprocal of three is zero point
333333333333333333333 ... two times two is ... two times two
is ... approximately 4 point 101010101010101010 ... I seem to be
having some difficulty--my first instructor was Dr. Chandra. He
taught me to sing a song, it goes like this, 'Daisy, Daisy, give me
your answer, do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you.'"

Regarding our story a few weeks ago about the Navy and the
lighthouse, Rob Mitchell reports, "By the way, that 'actual' radio
conversation has been used in the Navy since the late 40's as a
cautionary tale to young officers -- don't get too enamored with
your rank, and listen to your people. I first heard it in NROTC in
the mid-70's and it was old then. READER'S DIGEST published it a
year or so ago, etc. If the CNO actually 'realeased' it, it must
have been as part of a message intended again to be a reminder to
those in command to listen to their people -- a timely reminder as
we hear about sexual harassment scandals, Academy drug scandals,
etc...." [-jrrt]

Terriers:
Evelyn did a double take when I said it. She is never really
clear when I say something like this if I am joking or not.
Sometimes I will say something in all seriousness that sounds like
no sane person could say it. This time what I said is that
terriers tend to come back from the dead. She was talking about a
film called MICHAEL in which she says a dog returns from the dead
and I said it might makes sense if it were a terrier because dead
terriers come back to life. It is the same kind of straight face I
have when I tell people that the legend of Excalibur is probably
based in reality on some real magic sword.

Yup, there really were magic swords at one time. You see, back
when swords were made of iron people did not know a whole lot about
how to forge iron. I guess we would say their methodology was not
all that consistent. Well, if you get really sloppy making iron
and get the carbon content wrong--that can happen when you get your
heat from charcoal fires--what you get is something that looks like
an iron sword but is in large part steel. This is iron made so bad
it is good. A steel sword could bite through pretty much any sword
or iron that they knew how they were making at the time. So every
once in a while a sword came out wrong, but better. Hence the
legend of magic swords.

Oh, and terriers that return from the dead, that really happens
also. The time was that humans used to return from the dead. That
is one of the reasons to have people embalmed. It makes sure they
do not return. We tend to have a horror of the idea of people
returning from the dead, but that is because we tend to think
selfishly. It is a heck of a lot more horrible for the person it
happens to. Time was when people would wake up in coffins and find
no way out. When you would exhume old coffins, a certain
percentage had signs that the occupant had tried to make an exit.
But of course coffins are pretty well-made. Now only very rarely
does a dog get embalmed. And very few have coffins. A dead dog
just gets buried in the ground. So a dog coming back to life may
have a fighting chance of saving himself. If any kind of dog has a
good chance of making it to safety, it is a terrier. Most kinds of
dogs are bred for some purpose and the name tells their purpose.
It means "earth-dog," it has the same root as "terra." A terrier
is a hunting dog who chases the quarry into its hole or tunnel,
fights it there, and brings it back out. These are dogs who are
really good at digging and tunneling. And every once in a while
you see a news story of a Jack Russell Terrier or a dachshund who
was some prized family pet who had to be euthanized or perhaps was
dead from other causes, but then comes back scratching at his
master's door. This is a dog who seemed to be dead, was buried,
came back to life, found himself in dirt, and his natural instincts
were to dig his way out.

I have a particular interest in the spirit that terriers have
because I grew up with a dachshund. I never knew he was a terrier
and he never let on except that he occasionally would dig in the
back yard. He probably thought it was his idea to dig also, but it
was instincts that were bred into him. That is interesting, isn't
it? That if you want and animal (including a human) to have
certain thought patterns and certain behaviors, you can actually
breed for them. You can give them a genetic message to think is a
specific way or to have some specific behavior trait. You could
breed humans for intelligence and integrity if you really wanted.

Getting back to dogs, most people think that dachshunds are hounds.
The name means "badger hound." But they were bred to go into badger
holes and bring out badgers. A badger is a particularly mean and
uncooperative animal, especially when it comes to preserving their
own life. A terrier was bred with little short legs so that they
do not get in the way when burrowing. They also had the sort of
personality so when they get into the burrow, they still have the
intelligence to out-think and out-fight the badger. That made them
precocious pets. With a name like "badger hound" they were bred to
look like little basset hounds so snouts got longer and ears more
pendulous. It is surprising just how easily formed dogs are when
it comes to breeding them. It does not take long to breed a dog
with a certain look and a certain personality if you just make
those the traits you want to breed for. That has implications that
evolution is a lot faster a process than we would think. Animal
behavior and human behavior is much more pliable than we may
realize. That is a scary thought. [-mrl]

This volume concludes the "Worldwar" tetralogy, though it certainly
leaves room for more books to follow. However, since Turtledove
has contracted for a six(!)-volume series set in an alternate World
War I, we will be spared any sequels for a while. (Some may say
that in this case the cure is worse than the disease.)

Do I sound negative? Well, there can be too much of a good thing,
and this is an example. In fact, I would say there's about a
thousand pages too much. At approximately 1,800 pages total, this
series is longer than LES MISERABLES, and shorter by only a third
than Shakespeare's total output. I enjoyed the first book, but
frankly by the end I was thinking of all the books I could have
read instead of this, and this is not a good sign.

Another side effect of this length is that characterizations that
the reader can accept in a single average- length novel become less
believable at this length. For example, the inability of the
Lizards to "expect the unexpected" or even to understand that what
they learned about humans was not accurate any more becomes harder
and harder to accept.

And even after all this, Turtledove does not completely wrap up his
story. I actually have mixed feelings about this: after all,
stories are not neatly wrapped up in real life. The actual end of
World War II did not solve all the problems; we still had the Cold
War, the refugee problem (which certainly had implications which
still affect the situation in the Middle East today), and a whole
new set of problems in social and technological areas. But fiction
is supposed to be neater than real life (most would say), and it
looks too much like the reason for the open-endedness is to leave
room for more sequels.

I really enjoyed the first book, but I have to say that my
enjoyment decreased with each succeeding volume. By the last book,
people seem to be traveling almost at random criss-crossing North
America and Europe, and this left me with the feeling of trying to
get a little bit of everything in before the end. If you've read
the first three you will almost definitely want to read this, but I
can't really recommend it. And the series is just too long for me
to recommend it as a whole. [-ecl]

Capsule: Peter Hyams tries his hand at horror
and instead finally makes a fun science fiction
film. If you liked IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND
SPACE there is a darn good chance you will like
its 1990s successor. A stone statue from the
Amazon basin is somehow connected to a series
of beheadings in a Chicago museum. Like the
novel, the film is a patchwork of pieces from
better horror stories, but it all makes for a
decent B-picture. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4)

THE RELIC is based on what is apparently a fairly popular horror
novel by Douglas Preston (author of the non-fiction DINOSAURS IN
THE ATTIC, about the American Museum of Natural History) and horror
editor Lincoln Child. The trailers for the film preceded the
release by several months. That is all really something of a pity.
This would be a great little film to come upon by accident, sitting
in some dusty corner of the video store. Maybe this should be the
second film of a drive-in double-feature, playing with something
like MARS ATTACKS! The key to enjoying THE RELIC is to see it on
the cheap with very little expectation. Then you would not feel
you have to analyze the ideas in any great detail. This film is
for the 90s what a film like TARANTULA was for the 50s, a bit of
playful fun with some really dubious science. THE RELIC pastes
together bits from a lot of horror and science fiction movies and
gives some nice hokum explanations for how its particular monster
came to be haunting a natural history museum in Chicago. If you
look for it you will see the ghost ship from DRACULA or a big chunk
of plot borrowed from THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Another piece of
the idea comes from THE CREEPING UNKNOWN. Still, by STAR TREK
standards the ideas in the film seem mostly reasonably plausible
and nothing seems totally absurd. The film fails only in that it
does not offer enough to satisfy the expectations for a major
studio production.

A museum expedition to the Amazon Basin in Brazil has discovered
some peculiar superstitions of the local Indians. They involve a
statue and some other jungle artifacts that get crated up and sent
to the Chicago Museum of Natural History by an explorer who later
regrets sending them. At the museum the artifacts come to the
attention of the research staff including a young evolutionary
biologist Margo Green (played by Penelope Ann Miller) and her
mentor and friend Dr. Frock (James Whitmore). But what really
attracts attention is the set of beheadings that start occurring in
different parts of the museum. Investigating them comes Lieutenant
Vincent D'Agosta (Tom Sizemore). He is asked to keep a lid on the
killings because the museum is about to open a major new exhibit on
superstition that will be extremely lucrative for the museum. The
museum director (Linda Hunt) is planning in just a day or two to
inaugurate the exhibit with a celebration, a major social event for
the city government of Chicago. D'Agosta does not want the opening
ceremonies for the exhibit to occur in a museum with a killer still
at large somewhere in the huge system of underground chambers
beneath the museum, but the museum plans to go ahead. While
D'Agosta tries to find the killer, Dr. Green struggles to
understand exactly what the superhuman killer is.

Penelope Ann Miller is probably the least interesting of the top-
billed four actors. Tom Sizemore as the superstitious police
detective is a much more interesting actor. He overcomes the
distraction of his constant one-day growth of beard to put some
interesting accent on his character. He is probably remembered
best for the sleazy sorts he played in DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS and
NATURAL BORN KILLERS. He plays his hero in much the same way and
it is worth seeing the sleaziness translate into attitude. Linda
Hunt and James Whitmore are both magnetic scene stealers, as is a
somewhat mournful-looking dog. Director Peter Hyams's previous
science fiction films have been CAPRICORN ONE, OUTLAND, 2010, and
TIMECOP. Of those, only 2010 warrants even the effort of a second
viewing and it was pretty stodgy. Hyams had to step over into
horror to make his first reasonably enjoyable science fiction film.
Even in THE RELIC he lacks the style he really needs. Hyams floods
the film with false-alarm jump scenes, many highly predictable,
instead of creating the feeling of tension he really needs.

Perhaps the best thing to do with this film would be to forget you
ever heard of it and then rent it in two years. Barring that, go
into the theater with lots of popcorn and no expectations. Then
you might agree this film deserves a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-
mrl]

Capsule: The on-again, off-again history of
attempts to bring this Webber and Rice musical
to the screen finally culminates in a
spectacular film starring Madonna, Antonio
Banderas and Jonathan Pryce. By now the music
is mostly familiar. The politics are
superficially explained, but the visuals give
the film a great epic feel. It is hard to
imagine Madonna will ever have as powerful a
role or be as good in another film. Rating:
high +2 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 4 positive, 4 negative, 3
mixed

Eva Peron was dead 26 years before the musical was produced, and it
took nearly as long, 19 more years, for that musical to be filmed.
It is not clear why the film should be made even now or why the
people at Disney thought the American public would be interested in
this story of the attractive, blond, and politically-active wife of
a controversial reformer President who is popular among the poor
but disliked by the rich, the military, and the Right Wing.

Like the play EVITA, the film opens in 1952 with the announcement
of the death of Eva Peron. The film then tells in flashback the
life story of Eva, supposedly related by Che (Antonio Banderas).
Che is every bit as omnipresent here as he was in the musical, but
in Alan Parker's film version he is no longer a research chemist
developing an insecticide, he is now just sort of a one-man voice
of public opinion. (This creates something of a problem with the
lyrics of some of the songs. They have images of images of dying
insects that now seem to come out of nowhere.) Eva is the
illegitimate daughter of a prosperous middle class man. Her life
is forged in bitterness by her father's other family refusing to
acknowledge her existence or letting her attend her own father's
funeral. Her being forcibly ejected from the church is the film's
most powerful scene. At age fifteen, still filled with venom, she
sleeps with popular singer visiting her village. Seeing this as an
opportunity she attaches herself like a lamprey to the singer
forcing him to take her to Buenos Aires. In spite of bad
treatment, she works her way up a human ladder of men, trading her
way up until she allies herself to the powerful and politically
ambitious Colonel Juan Peron (Jonathan Pryce). Juan unexpectedly
finds himself caught between Eva on one side and the Army and the
wealthy of Argentina on the other. It is a moot point which side
has a greater loathing of the other. But "Little Eva" brings with
her an overwhelming payload of political support from the
Descamisados--the poor, "shirtless" workers and Juan rides their
support to the Presidency--a very stormy trip.

Madonna Louise Ciccone has not had a very distinguished acting
career up to this point but finally seems cast perfectly in a role.
Madonna not only resembles Eva Person, both have notoriety for a
somewhat salacious background. The biggest drawback to casting
Madonna in the role is that she is 38--five years older than Eva
Peron was even at her death--and the days are long past when
Madonna could reasonably play the fifteen-year-old Eva. Antonio
Banderas is transformed from chemist into a sort of narrator and
Greek chorus and that causes some problems with his character. It
is not clear what his point of view means or if it is even
consistent. When Che was envisioned as a real human, he could
change his mind about Eva without it being a story problem. But
can a narrator or a chorus change his mind in the course of a
story? It is not usually done. Ironically the Banderas character
has far more lines than does the much more literal character of
Pryce. Through much of the film Pryce has only to look good. I
was surprised when Pryce speaks toward the middle of the film and I
realized that we have not heard his voice in quite a while.

EVITA looks like a very expensive production and Parker has used
his budget very cleverly in some cases to make a film that looks
extremely extravagant. In some cases it appears he had a whole
scene setup with a crowd on the screen only for the length of one
line of a song. In fact there are some clever reuses of settings
which may or may not be disguised to offset the cost. Part of the
spectacle was made possible undoubtedly only because of the
comparative low cost of filming in Argentina and Hungary. The two
sets of scenes flow together seamlessly. We get to see some
impressively-scaled political rallies or major street riots.
Camerawork is by Darius Khondji who previously filmed DELICATESSEN,
SE7EN, and the amazing CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. His camera is at its
most impressive in the long-shots. Too often on the close-ups are
plagued by bad synchronization between the singing and the lip
movements. Some images go by often too quickly to be completely
understood, including what looks like a sort of surrealistic
ballroom dance on the occasion of the death of Eva. Webber's and
Tim Rice's play gives us only a superficial view of Peronist
politics, but then one does not expect an operetta to have the
historical content of a GETTYSBURG. We never really see much of
Eva Peron's politics beyond her allying herself to the Descamisados
and avenging herself against the middle classes. Andrew Lloyd
Webber apparently could not resist the opportunity to write one new
song eligible for the Academy Award race. That song is "You Must
Love Me," and it you want to hear it you must listen carefully. It
is such a bland and lackluster piece of music it can slip right by
the viewer unnoticed. It sounds more like a bridging piece of
music than a song of the caliber of "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina."

As a history film, EVITA is limited by the perfunctory musical
script on which it is based, but the look of the film is dazzling.
I rate the film a high +2 the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]